N. Korean defector speaks out to change her country
North Korean defectors Audrey Park and her mother have endured unimaginable hardship — whether it was being forced to subsist on a diet of corn and bugs, working in a labour camp or leaving family behind to make a harrowing winter trek across the Gobi Desert.
It was all for the chance at a better life.
Now, Park is determined to ensure future generations are not subjected to the same human rights violations existing under her country’s communist rule.
Park, 27, has been chosen as this year’s intern for the HanVoice Pioneers Project. HanVoice is a nonprofit organization advocating for North Korean human rights and refugees. The internship aims to empower and give a voice to defectors through a training and advocacy program.
Park, who is interning in Ottawa, will speak at a HanVoice benefit concert at the Canadian Museum of Nature at 6 p.m. on Tuesday to engage the local community about the ongoing plight of North Koreans.
Project director Veronica Kim said her organization was moved by Park’s story.
“Through the application process, (we) quickly determined she would be our first female pioneer who could bring a different perspective as females account for over 80 per cent of defectors,” Kim said.
Park, a master’s student studying political science in Seoul, is working for Conservative Sen. Yonah Martin, the first Canadian of Korean descent to serve in the Senate. Through her six-month internship split between Toronto and Ottawa, Park will explore the similarities and differences of integration policies between Canada and South Korea.
“She asks me to search topics, for example, on North Korean nuclear issues and North Korean defectors’ lives in South Korea,” Park said while sitting at a café in downtown Ottawa.
During a widespread famine in the 1990s when Park was seven, her family lived on one meal a day. The famine was partly due to a series of floods, but mostly because of “the state’s monopolization of access to food ... to enforce political loyalty,” according to a 2014 United Nations report.
“At that time, we didn’t have markets, no stores, because the government has a distribution system, so people every week would go to the distribution place to get food, get oil, get everything,” said Park, adding it was also not unusual to see people passed out or dead in the streets due to starvation.
In December 1998, when Park was 10, her mother felt she had no choice but to leave their home in Hamgyong to flee to China. She brought Park, but made the difficult choice to leave Park’s younger sister and father behind.
They embarked on a terrifying 12-hour walk to the Chinese border, dodging car headlights at night and walking through forests during the day. Her mother bribed a soldier to let them cross the border, which was not uncommon.
“We said we will be back in three days, but we lied,” said Park.
The pair lived in China for seven years. They were deported three times to North Korea, each time again fleeing the Hermit Kingdom. In 2006, they escaped for the third and final time during the winter, eventually ending up in South Korea. Halfway through that 16-hour trek, their food froze solid, so they left it behind. When asked how she survived her ordeals, the stoic young woman said the need to survive trumped fear.
“It’s really clear, it’s not complicated, I want food, that’s it,” she said. “So you don’t think of anything other than that.”
She sees Canada as a diverse and respectful society, whereas she feels most Asian countries are homogeneous societies that don’t always accept different cultures.
“That’s why it’s hard for North Koreans to adjust to South Korean societies.”
Sen. Martin sits on a committee that tabled a report in June called, The Forgotten Many: Human Rights and North Korean Defectors. One of the recommendations in the report regarding Canada’s role in South Korea is to give defectors the choice to settle in Canada over South Korea or China.
“Canada would be an excellent option because of the kind of society we have and the way in which people can integrate and begin a new opportunity,” said Martin. “So we think Canada can be part of a solution instead of just watching what is happening in that region.”
Park said she would like to return to a more modern, progressive North Korea someday.
“I think the most important thing is to just let people work, let people have jobs,” she said. “Because North Korean people are smart, they are eager to work. But the thing is the society has not enough jobs. The system doesn’t work properly and that means you have to reform the system.”